Former Congressman Ron Paul, the father of potential presidential candidate Rand Paul, said Wednesday that “American Sniper” Chris Kyle would be alive today if his killer was not using psychotropic drugs.

“If Eddie Ray Routh had never served in the military, I’m of the opinion that he would probably not have killed anybody,” Paul wrote on the website of his Institute of Peace and Prosperity on Wednesday as well as on his Facebook page. “He would not be imprisoned for life and Chris Kyle would be alive today. Much of the blame should lie with our foreign policy of interventionism and the VA’s faulty reliance on psychotropic drugs for treating the guilt associated with preemptive wars.”

The post echoes comments Paul made last year in a speech to The Independent Institute in which he said “it doesn’t take a real genius” to figure out psychotropic drugs are the cause of mass shootings.

“Just recently we heard about another shooting at Fort Worth,” Paul said in his April 2014 speech. “Second time you know, within a short period of time and soldiers were killed and the articles kept saying, ‘well we got to get to the bottom of this, what is causing this?’ And yet it doesn’t take a real genius to figure it out. Because when you look at it, if you look at the shootings and the various problems on campuses, and who knows what will happen on the one that happened today, but almost always these massive shootings whether they are military or not, occur with the doctors involved giving psychotropic drugs to people who are depressed.”

Paul said when many veterans return from war they realize the dangers of multiple deployments and come to the belief that perhaps the war they are fighting in is “useless, worthless, maybe there is no benefit to it.”

“When individuals come back, of course they are torn, because they have realization — just as I was pleased that they have the realization that a non-interventialist foreign policy pleased the military — what would it be like to go over the 3,4,5 and 6 times, worrying where your next step is going to be and whether you are going to get blown up. Seeing your buddies killed, and not seeing back home a whole lot of concern about why we are there. Just ‘oh yes you are great guys, you are all a bunch of heroes’ and we all wear bumper stickers and everybody is happy about it. But that is a far cry from these people waking up and saying ‘you know, maybe this war is useless, worthless, maybe there is no benefit to it.’ And all of a sudden they remember about kids getting killed, women getting killed, and all the carnage and saying, ‘you know they never did a thing to me, why did I go 6,000 miles?’”

Paul then again singled out the use of psychotropic drugs, saying “now we have a suicide epidemic” and this was all a consequence of American foreign policy. The former congressman added the ultimate solution to the epidemic of soldiers committing suicide was a non-interventionist foreign policy.

“Now I am convinced that soldiers that are put up with that and when they are exposed to it, when they come back end up with a lot of guilt and so they go see a doctor and unfortunately the doctor gives them these drugs and they end up—and now we have a suicide epidemic. And its a consequence of the foreign policy. We are not going to stop this problem by turning it over to the doctors. We need to turn it over to the American people who insist that our government quit getting involved in these kind of wars and exposing our kids to these predicaments they are in.”

Psychiatric drugs are now being given to infants and toddlers in unprecedented numbers.

An analysis of 2013 IMS Data, found that over 274,000 infants (0-1 year olds) and some 370,000 toddlers (1-3 years age) in the U.S. were on antianxiety (e.g. Xanax) and antidepressant (e.g. Prozac) drugs. This report also found over 1,400 infants were on ADHD drugs.

A 2014 Georgia Medicaid analyses led by Susanna Visser at the CDC (see a video of her fascinating talk) when extrapolated nationwide by the New York Times found that over 10,000 toddlers were put on ADHD treatments. (Dr. Visser is currently working on national estimates but believes that the estimate from the Georgia data is conservative.)

Prescriptions of powerful antipsychotics such as Risperdal for infants and very young children have also sharply risen. Office visits for childhood bipolar disorder have risen 40-fold over the past decade in the U.S.

Toddlers in the welfare system and those in foster homes are particularly vulnerable to receive drugs for behavior control. Had he lived today in a foster home, Dennis the Menace would probably have met criteria for Oppositional disorder, Temper Dysregulation Disorder, ADHD and/or Bipolar, and forced to take multiple drugs!

Most use in such young children is “off-label,” posing safety concerns. For example, a 2013 study of 44,000 children found that antipsychotic drugs tripled the risk for developing diabetes–confirming our warning in 2001.

Are psychiatric diagnoses reliable in such young children? Why are tens of thousands of children getting drugs outside guidelines? What is the most humane way to manage behavior changes in children?

The causes are debatable but our culture of “a pill for every temper tantrum” is one culprit. While there are effective nondrug behavioral therapies for preschoolers, access and incentives are not aligned to prioritize them. We also need to invest more in building resilience.

This is a complex problem but as the social reformer Frederick Douglass noted over a hundred years ago, “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy is professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University Medical Center, where he also serves as a member of the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences and as a senior fellow at the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.

Let’s establish one thing up front: I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I mean, if ADHD existed as an actual disease, I would have it. I should say, I have all of the “symptoms” that the mainstream medical and educational establishment currently view as proof of a disorder called ADHD. However you want to phrase this, it’s important for you to understand that I have “personal experience” here.

Personal experience shouldn’t actually matter — only the facts should — but if I have to play that game, then this is my Personal Experience Token. I am submitting it at the beginning of this discussion, hoping that it will get me through the gate and allow me to engage with the people on the opposite side of it.

I am very familiar with the “symptoms.” I’ve had them my whole life.

Even now, I daydream all the time. I can’t sit still. I can’t concentrate on mundane tasks. I get lost in my own head. I forget things. I can’t stay on one train of thought for very long. At this very moment, I have four different word documents open on my computer and I am working on four different posts at the same time. Three of them will never be published or completed. Ask my wife, she’ll tell you all about it. Ask my high school chemistry teacher who failed me once, made me repeat the class, then finally gave me an unearned passing grade the following year because he didn’t want to deal with me again. Ask anyone who knows me. If ADHD is a disease, I have it. I have it in spades. I have the deluxe king sized version. I have ADHD Turbo. ADHD on steroids.

Except that I don’t.

I have all of the “symptoms,” but I don’t have a disorder because there is no disorder. There might be people with legitimate disorders who get labeled with this one, but this one, this specific thing we refer to as ADHD, is a godforsaken lie. I don’t care who is upset by that statement, who will stop reading me because I said it, or how many angry and disappointed Facebook comments are coming my way. ADHD is a fraud.

That’s a pediatrician, a family psychologist, a child neurologist, and a psychological medical director all questioning the current mainstream attitudes and beliefs about ADHD. Many very credentialed people think ADHD is a scam, but their views are considered heresy by the Guardians of Acceptable Opinions, so they are silenced, squashed, and ignored.

That’s what we do in America. We like to think we’re better than any other country, that we embrace thought and free expression, but that’s a delusion only held by people who’ve never said anything that defies conventional wisdom. Conventional thought is embraced. Conventional speech is celebrated. Any variation or deviation outside of that norm will be met with brutal resistance.

Come to think of it, that attitude is exactly why we have this faux-disorder in the first place.

-Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another
-Have difficulty focusing on one thing
-Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless they are doing something enjoyable
-Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new
-Have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities
-Seem not to listen when spoken to
-Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly
-Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others
-Struggle to follow instructions.

Children who have symptoms of hyperactivity may:

-Fidget and squirm in their seats
-Talk nonstop
-Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight
-Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time
-Be constantly in motion
-Have difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities.

Children who have symptoms of impulsivity may:

-Be very impatient
-Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences
-Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games
-Often interrupt conversations or others’ activities.

I think most of us can look at that list and viscerally recognize it as a load of unholy bull crap. There are many reasons to view ADHD as a fraud, but let’s start with the fact that at the very beginning, before you take one step into the issue, it already makes no sense. Impulsive? Impatient? These are personality traits, not medical conditions.

Daydream? Talk a lot? Interrupt? These are behaviors, not symptoms of a disease. And not just any behaviors or any personality traits, but exceedingly normal ones for children. Probably the most normal ones you could possibly name.

Now you might say, well yes, they’re normal, but some kids, like, talk A LOT, and daydream A LOT, and interrupt A LOT.

To that I’d respond: yeah, still pretty normal.

Have you met kids recently? If not, I’d like to introduce you sometime. I’ve never encountered one who doesn’t act this way, and I’ve encountered plenty of kids. I have two of my own, plus I grew up with six siblings, I went to public school, my mom runs a daycare, and I have nine nieces and nephews under the age of 10. I’m around kids all the time. Come to Thanksgiving at the Walsh household this year — it’s madness. Daydreaming, fidgeting, running, interrupting all over the place. And that’s just me. Wait until all the kids show up.

But maybe you have kids who do these things A LOT A LOT. Beyond the normal a lot, and into the realm of REALLY A LOT. Alright, fine. So where’s the cut off?

We take these behaviors that we all agree are normal, we apply them to a subset of the species — children — who we all agree are predisposed to exhibit them more often, and we decide that somewhere along that spectrum it goes from “OK” to “symptomatic of a mental disorder.”

What? How? Why? Where? When? I mean, how specifically can you determine when a behavior crosses over from normal to not normal, and then how can you determine if the non-normalness of it is a disease as opposed to just their unique personality?

What is the standard? What is the proper amount of attention? How do you even quantify attention? If their attention is “deficient,” what is the exact Sufficient Attention Ideal of which they are falling short? And what is the correct amount of daydreaming a child should engage in? And how are we all not severely creeped out that we’re even having a conversation about the proper amount of daydreaming? What is this, “The Giver”? And if a behavior can be normal, how can it also be on the spectrum of a disease? How can something be fundamentally healthy and fundamentally symptomatic of a mental defect?

Why is it that the standard rules for medical procedure seem to be suddenly suspended when ADHD is on the table?

Let’s look at an Actual Sickness for comparison. Let’s look at dementia. There’s an honest-to-God mental disease. It’s also a disease that can be physically observed in the human body. You can see it quite unmistakably in a brain scan. And there are clear symptoms, like hallucinations. Notice, there isn’t a spectrum where acceptable hallucinations graduate into unacceptable hallucinations. Hallucinations are always bad, to any degree whatsoever. If you have them, something is wrong. Definitely. It might not be dementia, it might just be that you’re lost in a desert and suffering from heat stroke and malnutrition, but there is certainly something wrong. That’s because hallucinating, unlike daydreaming or talking or feeling bored, is objectively unnatural and abnormal. It is not a part of the healthy human experience, so if you experience it, go to the doctor.

ADHD cannot be observed and its symptoms all consist of regular human behaviors because there is no proof at all that it is a psychological disorder stemming from any kind of chemical imbalance. Don’t take my word for it, take it from this letter written by doctors and signed by members of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and members of the American Psychological Association. And don’t take their word for it, take it from your own logical mind. Remember, ”becomes bored with a task unless it’s enjoyable” is actually listed as the symptom of a disease in children. This is nonsense. This is beyond nonsense. This is lunacy. Isn’teveryone bored by unenjoyable things? Especially children? Especially children in school, which is without a doubt extremely boring?

I asked how we know when these behaviors, personality traits, and activities cross the mysterious divide from “normal” to “CALL A DOCTOR.” I was being facetious. I know the answer. It’s described right here in the Mayo Clinic’s fact sheet about ADHD:

In general, a child shouldn’t receive a diagnosis of ADHD unless the core symptoms of ADHD start early in life and create significant problems at home and at school on an ongoing basis.

Translation: it’s a disease if it turns into a hassle.

ADHD is the only “disorder” (well, besides the other ones psychiatrists have fabricated over the years) where the diagnosis relies not on what is actually happening within the body of the patient, but in how it’s received by the people around the patient. It is a disease based on context.

Here’s a fun riddle: If a kid has ADHD in the forest but nobody is there to be inconvenienced by it, does he still have a disease? Nope. Not according to the medical establishment.

Better question: if someone talks and runs around a lot and exhibits non stop energy on the sales floor at a busy car dealership, does he have ADHD? Nope. He’s just a good salesman. That’s because his job requires those traits, but school doesn’t. But who says we’re “supposed” to be suited for public school and not to sell overpriced cars? Who makes these determinations? Who decides how a person is supposed to be? “Talkative” and “energetic” are listed as signs of ADHD,andin the job descriptions for pretty much any position in sales, promotions, or marketing. Weird, huh?

If you can type the “symptoms” of a disease into the search bar on Monster.com and find most of them listed as necessary traits for thousands of jobs, something is wrong. Or nothing is wrong, which is the point here.

ADHD is not a matter of psychology or neurology, but of institutions. Schools can’t deal with kids who act this way, parents don’t want to deal with them, daycares aren’t equipped to deal with them, and society at large has no patience for any of it — so, we call it a disease and start passing out the prescription strength speed.

Does any Actual Illness work this way? If you go to the doctor complaining about bronchitis, will he ask you if the bronchitis is “creating problems at work on an ongoing basis”? No, because that doesn’t matter. Bronchitis is bronchitis is bronchitis. But ADHD is only ADHD in very specific circumstances. Public school, by the way, is a very specific (and temporary) circumstance. A child’s inability to succeed in that environment might be troubling for his parents, but it is not itself proof or indication of a mental defect. Why don’t we ever stop to consider that the defect lies in the institution that cannot function unless millions of its students are hopped up on drugs?

I’m often informed it’s a “myth” that ADHD is so vague that anyone could waltz into the doctor’s office and come away with a diagnosis. But declaring it a myth doesn’t make it one. The reality is that anyone really can get ADHD if that’s what they want (or what their parents want). That’s why parents often get viciously defensive when you question the disorder. They want it to be true because it’s a nice and clean “answer” with a nice and clean (and dangerous, with the potential for devastating long term side effects) chemical “solution.”

Maybe I’m being unfair. It’s not quite so simple, after all. The Center for Disease Control explains that children can only be diagnosed if they have “six or more symptoms of inattention for children up to age 16, or five or more for adolescents 17 and older and adults; symptoms of inattention [must be] present for at least 6 months, and [must be] inappropriate for developmental level.”

But why six symptoms? Why not seven? Why not three? Why not 10? And why does it change at 16? Why not 14? Why not 12? And why do they have to be present for six months? Why not nine? And how do you determine what’s appropriate for their developmental level? And, again, how in the world can you remotely rule out the possibility that these “symptoms” don’t stem from either the child’s natural personality, or a collection of the following:

TV

Netflix

Video games

iPods

iPads

Smart phones

Texting

Skyping

Lap tops

Fast food

Caffeine

Advertising

Lack of physical exercise

Boring curriculums

Boring jobs

Lack of discipline

Broken homes

Lack of sleep

Poor diet

Disinterest in academics

A government school system that only suits a particular personality type and leaves everyone else at a disadvantage

Over emphasis on memorization and regurgitation

Differing skill sets

Et cetera.

As a matter of fact, a study was just released linking energy drinks to ADHD in children. Shocking. Maybe next we’ll be able to link Cinnabon to obesity and alcoholism to car accidents. Who knows where this rabbit hole will go?

And ineffective parenting can’t be ruled out, can it? It’s not that all ADHD kids have bad parents (my parents were and are great), but as L. Alan Sroufe, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, has explained, there are certainly a great number of children on Ritalin who really just need some semblance of discipline and stability at home.

How does all of that get factored in?

It doesn’t.

These kids don’t have ADHD. Nobody does. Maybe some of the kids tagged with the ADHD label actually suffer from some other psychological ailment, but I suspect that the vast majority of them have no ailment whatsoever. They are just kids. They have personalities. They have identities. Maybe that identity doesn’t fit in at school, maybe it causes stress at home, but who are we to declare it diseased? Who are we to hang a disorder around the neck of a child? Maybe we are the disordered ones. Maybe our society is disordered. Maybe our schools are disordered. Maybe our homes are disordered.

I told you about my “ADHD.” Well, a funny thing happened. The precise disposition that made it very difficult for me to excel in chemistry class or while working as a cashier is now the precise disposition that makes it possible for me to excel in my current career. Writing, debating, creating new ideas, trying to earn a living in the ever changing world of new media — I couldn’t do any of that if I wasn’t like this. What made me a failure in school makes me extremely successful in this realm. How do you explain that?

Maybe we’re so obsessed with the notion that everyone must follow one path, act one way, think one way, and do one thing, that we’ve forgotten what it means to be human. We’ve forgotten that not all humans are born to be straight A students turned 9 to 5 desk jockeys. Some are different. Maybe some aren’t suited for that life at all. Maybe some people are meant to be the artists, the radicals, the philosophers, the thinkers, the geniuses, the inventors, the revolutionaries, or the car salesmen.

I don’t consider myself to be any of those things, but I am a normal guy who found his place in the world without the assistance of drugs.

I think all kids deserve that chance.

ADHD doesn’t exist. Human beings do. And I think we need to work harder at trying to understand them.

Los Angeles County officials are allowing the use of powerful psychiatric drugs on far more children in the juvenile delinquency and foster care systems than they had previously acknowledged, it was reported Tuesday.

The newly unearthed data obtained by the Los Angeles Times through a Public Records Act request show that Los Angeles County’s 2013 accounting failed to report almost one in three cases of children on the drugs while in foster care or the custody of the delinquency system.

The data show that along with the 2,300 previously acknowledged cases, an additional 540 foster children and 516 children in the delinquency system were given the drugs, according to The Times. There are 18,000 foster children and 1,000 youth in the juvenile delinquency system altogether.

State data analysts discovered the additional cases of medicated children by comparing case notes of social workers and probation officers with billing records for the state’s Medi-Cal system, The Times reported. The billing records for those additional children did not appear to have corresponding case notes, leaving child advocates concerned that the drugs may have been prescribed without appropriate approval.

State law requires a judge’s approval before the medication can be administered to children under the custody of the courts, but a preliminary review showed no such approval in the newly discovered cases, according to the newspaper.

Child advocates and state lawmakers have long argued that such medications are routinely overprescribed, often because caretakers are eager to make children easy to manage, even when there’s no medical need.

The information about the additional cases of prescribed drugs was received by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services last year, but county staffers resisted reviewing and releasing the data until The Times’ public records request.

Researchers at Australia’s Murdoch University in Perth and the University of Queensland found that the side effects of the antipsychotics include Parkinsonism, restlessness, involuntary movements, weight gain, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, constipation, dry mouth. and dizziness. The most prevalant side effect is extreme fatigue, which leaves many in a “zombie state,” they report.

Murdoch University Professor Paul Morrison commented,

People using antipsychotic medications experience adverse side-effects that reach into their physical, social and emotional lives, and cause a level of fear and suffering that is difficult for anyone else to fully comprehend.

The proportion that experiences a disturbing side-effect has been estimated at between 50 and 70 per cent, and participants in our study reported on average between six and seven medication side-effects.

Even worse, antipsychotic medications also provoke side effects that are strangely similar to the symptoms that the users are attempting to combat, including feelings of hopelessness.

“The issue here is the extent to which people with a mental illness have been conditioned into accepting the disabling effects of psychotropic medications without protest,” Professor Morrison explains, adding,

The ability of mental health staff to forestall protest arises from the guilt communities thrust upon the sufferer. Without this guilt and shame, would mental health consumers and their loved ones be so ready to accept that a life of zombie-like consciousness and physical discomfort is preferable to hearing voices, or would they be demanding more intensive efforts to develop “cleaner” medications?

Based on the findings, researchers suggest creating a standardized rating scale that would assess and monitor the side effects of these medications and encourage better communication between patients are their doctors.

There have been 72 warnings from eight countries (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa) warning that antipsychotic drugs cause harmful side effects. These include the following (note that some warnings cite more than one side effect, so the list below may not be equal to the total number of warnings):

Sadly, despite the side effects connected to these antipsychotic drugs, the number of children taking them continues to rise at alarming rates. Research shows that those numbers have nearly tripled over the last decade, not simply because there is a sudden increase in the number of children diagnosed with schizophrenia or any other serious mental illness, but because more doctors are prescribing drugs to treat behavioral problems.

Consumer Reports writes,

Doctors are prescribing antipsychotics even though there’s minimal evidence that the drugs help kids for approved uses, much less the unapproved ones, such as behavioral problems. And to make matters worse, the little research there is suggests the drugs can cause troubling side effects, including weight gain, high cholesterol, and an increased risk of type-2 diabetes.

Some believe that the increase in these prescriptions results from parents looking to find an easy solution to their children’s behavioral problems.

“There’s a societal trend to look for the quick fix, the magic bullet that will correct disruptive behaviors,” said David Rubin, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “But for those looking for a quick solution to escalating behaviors at home, the hard truth is there is unlikely to be a quick fix.”

Consumer Reports also notes the increase in the prescribing of antipsychotics can be attributed to several other factors, including aggressive drug marketing and a lack of access to quality healthcare.

Antipsychotics have become huge moneymakers for the drug industry. In 2003, annual U.S. sales of the drugs were estimated at $2.8 billion; by 2011, that number had risen to $18.2 billion. That huge growth was driven in part by one company — Janssen Pharmaceuticals — and its aggressive promotion of off-label uses in children and elderly patients, relying on marketing tactics that according to the federal government, crossed legal and ethical lines.

Further, data from the Centers for Disease Control revealed that there continues to be a significant increase in the number of school-age children on psychiatric medications to treat emotional or behavioral problems. One health study shows that 7.5 percent of children between the ages of six and 17 are on psych meds based on data collected from interviews between 2011 and 2012 with parents of over 17,000 children.

“Over the past two decades, the use of medication to treat mental health problems has increased substantially among all school-aged children and in most subgroups of children,” the report’s authors explained.

Unfortunately, the survey did not identify which diagnoses were being treated by the medications, but estimates indicate that a majority of the drugs are to treat ADHD symptoms, a point that critics are likely to seize upon. As noted by the UPI, “The study may lend credence to critics who say America’s children are over-diagnosed with ADHD — and subsequently over-prescribed and over-medicated.”

According to the American Psychiatric Association, five percent of American children have ADHD, but studies reveal more than 11 percent of American children are diagnosed with the condition.

What may be more alarming is that there is increasing evidence that ADHD may not be the epidemic that some are claiming, and in fact, may not even be an actual condition.

Dr. Richard Saul, who has been practicing behavioral neurology for 50 years, and is the author of the new book ADHD Does Not Exist, writes in a March 2014 Time piece,

The fifth edition of the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] only requires one to exhibit five of 18 possible symptoms to qualify for an ADHD diagnosis. If you haven’t seen the list, look it up. It will probably bother you. How many of us can claim that we have difficulty with organization or a tendency to lose things; that we are frequently forgetful or distracted or fail to pay close attention to details? Under these subjective criteria, the entire U.S. population could potentially qualify.

Saul’s analysis confirms what critics have been saying regarding the growth in the rate of mental illness issues: that it may in fact be the result of expanded medical terms and definitions.

Slate.com warned of such a thing in April 2013:

Beware the DSM-5, the soon-to-be-released fifth edition of the “psychiatric bible,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The odds will probably be greater than 50 percent, according to the new manual, that you’ll have a mental disorder in your lifetime.

Although fewer than 6 percent of American adults will have a severe mental illness in a given year, according to a 2005 study, many more — more than a quarter each year — will have some diagnosable mental disorder. That’s a lot of people. Almost 50 percent of Americans (46.4 percent to be exact) will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetimes, based on the previous edition, the DSM-IV. And the new manual will likely make it even “easier” to get a diagnosis.

The expanded definitions have resulted in significant increases in diagnoses of mental disorders, particularly ADHD. Dr. Saul writes, “The New York Times reported that from 2008 to 2012 the number of adults taking medications for ADHD increased by 53% and that among young American adults, it nearly doubled.”

According to CCHRINT, there is abundant evidence proving a connection between psychotropic medications and violent crimes, and government officials are well aware of the connection.

Groups such as CCHR are committed to informing the public of the documented risks of psychiatric drugs, and has created a guide to documented psychiatric drug side effects, taking the official FDA adverse reaction reports (MedWatch data), international drug regulatory agency warnings and studies, and summarizing the often complex information into an easy, user-friendly format for consumers, researchers and policy makers.